Page 11 of My First and Only Crush

“Don’t tell me things like that.” He pushes off the wall, and the look on his face shocks me. He looks tortured.

I try to correct myself. “Not that I want to be. By anyone else, I mean. I like it when you?—”

“Jesus.” He presses back into me, covering my lips with his fingertips.

I shudder at the unexpected contact. “It’s okay,” I mumble against his hand.

His shadowed expression is so hard to read, but the tension in his body isn’t a mystery at all. His hand slides away from covering my mouth and slaps against the wall.

I press my hands flat to his chest and smooth my fingers over him the way he once taught me to do with the horses on his ranch. A lifetime ago. Like them, he’s a giant, gentle beast. Like them, he needs to know I’m not afraid.

Unlike them, he’s not going to let me climb up and go for a ride.

There are limits to the analogy, much to my disappointment.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He frowns. “Go back to the hotel, Sinclaire. It’s gonna be a long, messy night, and you shouldn’t see any of it.”

I cross my arms over my chest, as if I can hold in the complicated feelings that threaten to spill out. “I’m not a kid. You don’t need to protect me from all of that.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware that you’re not a child. And I’m only trying to protect you from myself.”

* * *

His words are still ringing in my ears when I get back to the hotel the team is staying at and find the room I’m supposed to be staying in full of people.

“We’re having a party!” my roommates say happily.

Good for them.

I grab my bag and head for the door.

Downstairs at the front desk, I show my ID to the clerk. “My dad has a room here. He’s the manager of the team that just won the World Series, and he’s not going to be back for a while. Like, hours. And my roommates…” The whole story, minus the devastating crush that will never be reciprocated, spills out.

It’s a pretty sad tale, if you ask me.

The clerk is unmoved. “You can wait for your dad in the lounge reserved for the team, but I can’t give you a room key to a room that your name isn’t on. Not without his permission.”

Since I’ve been raised from birth to understand not to make a scene in public, I nod miserably and accept the instructions to where I can go.

Luckily the lounge is, in fact, quiet, and a good place to have a little cry over my tendency to be a stupid little girl.

Then I start digging through boxes, hoping to find some protein bars or something, because I haven’t had dinner yet, and I’m famished.

I come across something even better—a binder left behind by one of the travel coordinators.

And in it is a spare set of room keys.

I flip through, looking for my dad’s, but then I see Trick’s card, and my fingers stop. I trace the letters of his name.

Who would be less annoyed with me for stealing into their room to order some room service? My father, or the man who stormed away from me after saying,Trust me, I’m well aware that you’re not a child. And I’m only trying to protect you from myself.

Even if Trick is horrified to find me in his space, he’ll keep it a secret.

And he said himself that the party will rage for hours. He’s not going to know I was ever there.

All I need is some food, and a place to charge my phone. I don’t need to wait for the team’s plane to fly home tomorrow. I can book myself on the first flight out in the morning, and take a cab to the airport in the middle of the night.

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